GED
by staceycj
Summary: This is the story of Dean's journey to get his GED
1. Chapter 1

I caught him the other night sitting at the table in the kitchen looking at my English text book. I watched as he struggled to read to himself out loud. Dean did that. Reading was his weakest subject, but there he was sitting at the table, trying desperately to read Hamlet out of my Advanced Placement English Literature book. Dean wanted to be smart. Time and time again people told him that he wasn't. Told him that he was a good hunter, that he was strong and good with a gun, but they always looked at me and called me "John's little genius." No matter what Dean says, I know that it bothers him. And ever since Truman, ever since dropping out of high school almost four years ago, well, it just seemed to bother him more. And the more it bothered him, the more he tried to pretend like it didn't.

It bothers me that there seems to be nothing I can do to help him. I can't tell him to go back to school and get a diploma. He's 22, and he'd probably be put back in 10th grade, if they would even let him back in, and they'd probably label him as learning disabled. He isn't. He just needs someone to help him. He won't ask for their help, he's too proud, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want or need it. I just wish I could do it. But he seems to hide his issues from me more than anyone else. I wish he'd let me be there for him like he's always there for me.

Dean always pushed for me to be able to go to school rather than to hunt, always told Dad it was important for me to be able to read and write, be able to do math. He once told dad that it would make me a better hunter if I was allowed to play soccer. He always thought of stuff like that, always able to find a way around something, to make sure I got what I needed or something I wanted. And he was able to outsmart people and monsters like none other.

But for Dean, that kinda thing was easy. It was just simple logic to him. But school, sitting down and reading literature, learning formulas, memorizing dates and battles, never came easy, people never came easy, and for him that meant being held back, or not being helped at all and allowed to fail, not because he was stupid, but because he didn't understand. We never stayed in one school long enough for anyone to be able to sit down and teach him what phonics was, much less how to use it and how to sound out words and what they meant.

I caught Dean one evening, with my text book on the table and an ancient dictionary he must have found at one of the motels we stayed at, and he would sit, with pencil and paper in hand, and write down every single word he didn't understand and then look it up. I found the paper tucked inside his dictionary, when I was rooting through his things to find deodorant, mine had been lost somewhere between Texas and New York. And the words I found listed were ones that were easy, ones that a 20 + year old man should have known, but because he had never been taught, he didn't.

"Dean?" I asked with a dramatic yawn. I was giving him time to close the book and pretend like he wasn't reading. And when I opened my eyes and shuffled into the kitchen that is exactly what he had done. The ancient dictionary was tucked under his shirt, my text book was pushed away from him, and he was sitting there with a glass of something in his hand. My brother was awesome at diversion, that was most certainly a lesson he learned well.

"Why are you up Sammy? Don't you have a big test tomorrow?" He asked and took a sip of his drink. Dean remembered stuff like that. He remembered that I had a huge AP Chem test tomorrow, and he would probably ask me in a couple of days to see the test. That was just what he did. He was always proud of me, and sometimes I wonder if he knew that I was proud of him.

"I needed to be up early to read my section of Hamlet." I said. I didn't have to. We'd finished the play days ago, and I had been wakened by Dean getting out of bed. When you are trained to notice all details, something big like your family getting up and leaving the room tends to not go unnoticed.

"Oh, well, then I'll leave you to it. I probably should get back to bed." He said and swallowed the last of his drink.

"Can you help?"

"Oh Sammy, you don't need my help." He smirked. "My brother the genius doesn't need his brother to help him read a wussy play." His smile held and I was impressed that it did, but it didn't reach his eyes, most people wouldn't notice but they were stormy and sad.

"I need someone to read the other lines for me. We have to memorize a part and it helps if someone reads the other half to me."

"Sam…you don't need…"

"I need your help Dean." And those were the magic words. They always had been, and they most certainly would forever be. He caved. I watched him fold up like a cheap suit.

"Okay Sammy." He wasn't happy about it.

I pushed the book towards him and told him to read the lines, said that I should know mine, and that this was basically just testing me. And Dean nodded, cleared his throat, and began to read aloud from the text, haltingly, and slowly, and at times stopping to sound out a word, and after doing that several times, he pushed the book away from himself and looked at me.

"You do this on your own. You know your lines." He pushed away from the table, careful to keep his dictionary inside his shirts and headed out of the kitchen. I heard the bathroom door close. Sighing I put my head down on the table. I embarrassed him. I didn't mean to, but there it was.

****

I closed the bathroom door behind me as softly as I could. I didn't want Sam to think I was mad at him. I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at myself. I should have stayed in school, I should have agreed to go into that special program at the one school during my junior year, but I was too proud, too arrogant and I decided that I would just rather flunk and stay stupid.

Sitting down on the closed toilet seat I pulled the dictionary out of my shirt, and looked at it. Why did I even bother keeping it? I apparently wasn't getting any smarter by using it. The list of words in my duffel keeps getting longer and longer and it doesn't seem to be helping. I even study those freaking words and memorize their definitions and I'm not getting any better. Tonight's reading just confirmed it. I stumbled over every single word and Sam knew the words by heart and he said them so well. It was like when he was little and asked me to read picture books to him. He'd correct me as I read, because he knew the words, knew the secret to their sounds. My little brother is so smart.

I shook myself from my funk, stood, washed my face, looked into the mirror and tried to only see the surface, tried to only see the face that women loved, and men wished was theirs, but I wasn't able to see the surface, I was only able to see the failure, the high school drop out, the cash paid mechanic at the garage down the street. The nobody. The scared lonely kid who has no one to turn to and doesn't know how to make people value him. I shook my head and opened the bathroom door and turned towards the bedroom. Sam was standing in the doorway.

"Dean….you okay?"

"Course I'm fine." I tried to put a smirk in place, and figured that in the light that Sam wouldn't know the difference. I was wrong, instead of reassuring him, his face contorted just slightly more towards disbelief. "I'm fine Sam, I just don't' want to participate in your overachieving."

"Overachieving?"

"You know those lines, you don't need help. What you need is sleep." Something passed across Sam's face that I couldn't identify. Sadness? Defeat? Maybe? I couldn't put my finger on it, but he complied and got into bed, and I went into the next room and tried to get comfortable, tried to be ready for sleep, because Dad would be here tomorrow, and he would want some research done, and I had to be ready, I had to be smart enough, good enough to do that for him.


	2. Chapter 2

I came home from school one afternoon to find Dean pouring himself over a Latin text. He had a Latin to English dictionary beside the text, a pen in his mouth, and paper next to him. Dad usually left the Latin to me, because he knew that Dean had a hell of a time translating the text, Dean wanted to do it, but his brain just couldn't comprehend things like mine.

"Hey Dean." I said and threw my book bag on the ragged couch. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Translating this text for Dad."

"Want some help?"

"No." The pen went back into his mouth and he resumed chewing on the cap.

"You sure?"

"Positive. Now, don't you have a Calculus test to study for?" Deflection, always deflection. Just once I wish that my brother would accept help when it was offered and not act like we were offering to bite him.

I compromised. I got my Calc book and I sat down at the table next to my brother and did my math while he tried desperately to get the translation correct for our perfectionist father. I give Dean credit. He knows he isn't very good at Latin, knows that he always screws up the verbs, but he keeps trying, keeps hoping that he'll do a better job, hoping that someone will notice his efforts and praise him for it. No, not someone, just Dad. I could tell him that he's doing a good job, he'd cuff me on the back of the head and say that we aren't girls. But, he thrived on praise from Dad. And Dad never gave any to my older brother. Yet, he kept right on trying.

Hours had past, I hadn't noticed, I had been so engrossed in my text, when Dad came in the house, loudly. That was one thing I never quite understood about Dad. On a hunt he was silent as can be, but anywhere else, loud and clomping.

"Dean, you done with that translation yet?"

"Almost Dad." Dean said without so much as an upwards glance. He was truly concentrating, and trying to get the translation right.

"You've been working on it for six hours. Give it to your brother."

"Dad, I'm almost done." Dean said, brows knitted together in concentration.

"Give it to your brother. He can finish it. Go out to the car and get the weapons, they need cleaned."

"Dad…"

"That's an order Dean." The magic words and when Dean didn't respond quickly enough Dad picked up the book and threw it in my general air space. "This is not the time for defiance Dean." Dad said his eyes angry and his mouth a thin hard line. I could swear that he was breathing hard. All this over a stupid Latin translation? "There are lives at stake Dean, and they can't risk you not knowing what you are doing. Go. Go get the weapons and clean them and have them ready for tonight." The words "because you aren't good at anything else" hung thickly in the air. Dean put the pen down, didn't look at me, didn't even look in my general direction, and quickly left the apartment. Unlike Dad, his steps were quiet and the door shutting was so soft I thought I missed it. But Dean was a good soldier after all, and didn't complain, and didn't communicate just how humiliated or hurt he had to be.

"Dad, Dean would have had it."

"No. He wouldn't. I only let him do it because you weren't here and he needed something to do to keep him busy while I was doing the leg work of the hunt."

"Why didn't you let him do the leg work?" I asked as I looked down at my brother's scrawls. He had translated some of it, but most of what he had done was incorrect. Dean had never been good with languages. I remember when he was a Freshman in high school, before he'd been beat down so bad and humiliated, he worked so hard on papers. He wrote and rewrote, asked me to look over them, asked neighbors to look over them, but they were never very good. Dean didn't have that flow that was needed to write a really good paper. Words on a page never made sense to my brother. But, he tried. He tried hard then, and he tried hard now, and it still seemed to get him nowhere. No wonder he liked fast women and pool. Those things didn't tell him he was stupid.

"Your brother isn't a very delicate human being. He's good at killing, and grunt work. Remember that Sam." My brain actually had a hard time processing that one. My brother raised me. He was good with people. He was damn good with people. He spent more time when we were kids trying to get the neighbors to let him do odd jobs, and asking little old ladies to watch me while he went out and did whatever he did to earn us money that we needed when Dad wasn't around, or when Dad had forgotten that in addition to a roof over our heads we needed food in our stomachs as well. Dean was most certainly good with people.

"So you think Dean's only good for the blood and guts end of a hunt? That he's what? One of the foot soldiers during the invasion of Normandy, that all of the generals knew would more than likely die, but they needed them to pave the way to glory with their deaths. I couldn't believe it. My dad thought my brother was nothing but a warm body.

"Your brother, he can handle a gun, but not people. He doesn't have anything that would endear people to him. Remember that when you guys go hunting together. Make sure that when you guys go out to interview people that you do it, don't let him. But most definitely hand him the gun. He's good with a gun." The rage boiled inside of me. If I had to guess, this is the moment in my life where I decided that I dislike or even hate my father.

Dean came back in and cleaned the weapons while I translated. Dean watched me out of the corner of his eye. But he absolutely never said a word. He must have been humiliated. When the Latin was translated and the guns were cleaned, we were allowed to go to bed. Dean wasn't going on this hunt. This was something Dad wanted to do on his own. Said Dean wasn't needed. Short of cutting off my brother's manhood, I'm not sure how else my father could have emasculated him further.

I woke up again in the middle of the night, Dean had gotten up again. I crept out of the room and into the kitchen and there he was, working diligently on the Latin he had been unable to do earlier in the day, checking his work against mine and scratching out and erasing his until there was a hole in the paper.

I was just about to go to bed when I heard the pencil, book and paper fly across the room and crash into the wall. My brother sat there for a moment and then put his head down on the table in his crossed arms. Then I saw something I was unaccustomed to. I watched my brother's shoulder shake in sobs.

"I'm sorry I'm so stupid mom. You would be so disappointed in me. First, for not finishing school, and now, I can't even do something basic. I'm so sorry mom that I turned into such a screw up." I had to put a hand over my own mouth to keep from crying myself. I wanted to yell and tell him that mom couldn't think he was a screw up, that he wasn't a disappointment, that he had single handedly raised me, and I was going to Stanford, that I was smart, and if I was smart then he had to be smart. But instead I stood there and watched my brother cry and apologize to our dead mother for being stupid, and for being a screw up. What a horrible person I turned out to be.


	3. Chapter 3

I was sitting at the kitchen table when he told us. I was sitting there cleaning guns, my usual task, my keep-Dean-busy task. That was when I heard my brother's loud clear and strong voice announce that he was going to go to Stanford, that they had given him a full ride, and he was going to take it. I looked down at the weapon in my hand and battled the surfer riding the wave of jealousy in my stomach. Sam deserved it. Sam was so smart. Mom would be so proud. I looked at the gun in my hands again and sighed. Mom would have been so disappointed in me. I fought the urge to cry.

Pushing myself up I went into the living room where the mother of all fights was ensuing. I just watched as my brother pushed, and my father pulled, as my brother screamed hurtful things, and my father screamed orders and hurled insults more vial than any poison created by man or monster. And I listened, aware that neither realized I was in the room, and even if they did realize I was there, they most certainly didn't care about my opinion on the subject, after all, the stupid one, the high school drop out, should be in the other room cleaning weapons, because God knew the retard couldn't handle anything more taxing.

Truth of the matter is, I hope Sam gets to go. No, I hope Sam goes whether or not Dad agrees and doesn't look back. I hope he uses that massive intellect he has. I don't want him to end up like me.

"If you go, you ungrateful son of a bitch, then you better stay gone."

"I will. You don't have to worry about that. If I never see another crap hole motel room, abandoned house, rented house, or apartment, it will be too soon." Sam said the magic words. He was leaving. He was leaving me behind. And he should.

I followed him to our room and watched from the doorway as he threw his duffel on the bed. I heard Dad slam the door and the truck leave the parking lot.

"Stanford?" I asked.

"Don't you dare give me grief Dean." Sam said and his voice was quivering, close to tears. Dad's words hurt him more than he let on down there. I guess I did teach him something. Shame it wasn't' anything important.

"Truth is. I knew this was happening." I said and went to my bed and pulled the mattress up and pulled out a box I kept under the mattress. I pulled out a wad of cash. Almost two thousand. I'd been hustling for this moment since he started mentioning college.

I looked down at the wad of cash and then extended my arm with the money and looked up at my brother. "Here. Take it."

Sam stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"I sorta knew that you were heading to college. I wanted you to leave with something. It's all I could make. I'm sorry it's not more." Sam stepped forward and looked at the wad of cash like it might bite.

"I can't take it."

"Take it Sammy."

"But you need that money. You might need a motel room. Might need gas in the car, might need food." Sam said the last painfully. He had realized at some point in the year, that I had gone without food many times over the course of our lives so he could be fed. He acted like I had done something amazing. I hadn't. I simply provided the things he needed. It's my job.

"I'm fine Sammy. I'm not the one who's going to be so busy with the books that I won't have time to get a job. Plus, you never know when you'll need socks or a new shirt or something like that."

"Dean…" His eyes had gone soft. I desperately wanted to yell and say no chick flick moments please but he started talking before I could stop him. "Dean come with me."

"What?" Shock was the word of the moment.

"Come with me to Stanford." I snorted.

"Sam. I don't even have a high school diploma."

"Take classes to get your GED and then go to community college. Something. You don't have to stay in this life."

I looked into my brother's earnest honest eyes and I had to look away. "Sam. This is my place. This is what I'm good at. School isn't for me."

"Dean."

"Take the money! Get the hell out! Go to your new life!" I yelled. I couldn't have this conversation. I couldn't have him tell me that I was smart enough to go with him. I couldn't have him talk me into it, and then be forced to tuck tail and leave less than a year later when I failed. I didn't want mom to be any more disappointed in me than she probably already was.

I left Sam in that room alone. I didn't say good bye to my brother. I couldn't' risk him trying to persuade me again. I heard the door close softly, I felt my brother leave. I felt it like I had had felt wounds before. This one was going to take a long time to heal.

I went back up to our-I mean my room, and found a note on my bed.

Dean,

You aren't stupid. You could go to college. You taught me everything I know. Don't let Dad keep putting you down. You are one of the best hunters on the planet. Everyone but you seems to know that.

Sammy

PS Thank you for the money.

I smiled and put the note in my wallet. I sat and looked around the room. I felt like a mother who lost her child. How stupid was that? I ran a hand down my face, sighed, and waited for my general to come home and put me to work on another mission.


	4. Chapter 4

I was driving aimlessly, I did that a lot now that Sam was at Stanford. It wasn't like evil took a holiday, I just didn't have it in me sometimes to go looking for it. I would just drive around the country like it was nothing, like I had somewhere to be, when in fact I have no where to be.

I was just between the point of sighing out of boredom and turning on the radio when my cell rang. To be honest, I hadn't heard the thing make a noise in over two weeks and the sound startled the hell out of me. I didn't recognize the number, but answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"Is this Dean?"

"Who is this?"

"This is Edna Fowler. I was told that you know some things about things."

"Yes ma'am I do."

"I have a ghost…I think it's my husband…"

"Ma'am?"

"He's been gone for years…twenty to be exact. He's been hanging around, and at first I felt comforted, and it was wonderful. But as the years go on, he's getting antsy, well, he's getting to be slightly….testy I think is the right word."

"Testy?"

"Yes. He throws things now when I'm not paying attention, or if I haven't spoken to him. A couple of days ago, I told him that he needed to move on, to go into the light so to speak, and I just want him there so when I get there we can be together again. I'm 78 years old. It won't be too much longer. Well, anyway, I thought he went. I was so happy for him. But turns out he didn't' go or stay gone or…oh dear I don't know. But now he just seems more angry with me. I just want him to go to heaven, just want him to be there when I get there. Can you help me?"

And because I am Dean Winchester and don't know how to say no to anyone in their time of need, I went, and it didn't take long before her husband manifested, and boy oh boy did he manifest. He started throwing things and they were aimed straight for my head. He really didn't seem to like me much.

The old ghost managed to clip me once and then nail me straight in the forehead with something that looked like an apple. That one about knocked me out and I'm fairly certain it's going to leave a big purple bump. That will most certainly be attractive. But once I started talking, once I made the ghost become something that we both could see, I was able to talk to the man, explain to him that his wife just wanted him to go to the light, go to a better place and wait for her there. Then old Edna started to cry and reiterated what I said, she told him how much she loved him and that she missed him, but he needed to leave, to be happy for a while. I am pretty sure her tears did more to convince the old man more than anything I did. But when she started to cry the ghost stopped throwing things at my head, and he looked sad as he watched his wife cry, told her several times to stop crying, that he couldn't' take it anymore, and she told him that the only way she would ever be able to stop was if he moved on. And after one last ghostly kiss he did fade and then step into an overwhelming light. I turned and watched as Edna took one last heaving sigh and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"It's like he died all over again."

"I'm sorry." I didn't know what else to say, I've lost friends to death, Hell, I've even lost my brother, and it was like he died when he left, but I truly don't know how to empathize. My dad was right al of those years ago, I didn't understand the people part of the job, I am just best with a gun. But with Dad and Sam gone, who was supposed to do this part of the job? If they both thought I was too stupid to do this why did they both leave me?

"It had to be done. I let him hang around for too many years. I just couldn't let him go." did. I watched her for a moment, I wanted to hug her, but she was a complete stranger, and in my life, hugs and kisses and signs of affection are strictly weaknesses, things to be used against you later. Instead, I nodded turned and squatted and began collecting things from the floor and stuffing them into my duffel bag.

"How much to I owe you?" she asked after a few minutes of collecting herself. I looked up at her and her eyes still glistened with tears. It seemed so wrong to be asked how much you are owed when a person just lost the love of their life.

"Nothing ma'am."

"Oh come on now young man. You got knocked in the head, you surely want some kind of payment."

"No. No ma'am. I don't do this for money."

"Then you have to stay for breakfast."

"Oh, no, I can't trouble you like that."

"But you have to eat."

"You have to be tired. It's been a long night for you."

"I won't be able to get to sleep."

"You should at least try. You are going to be exhausted tomorrow if you don't."

"Are you mother henning me young man?" I felt the blush creep up my cheeks. I used to mother hen Sam, and he's been gone a while, I guess the instinct is still there. Go figure.

"No, ma'am."

"You are eating. That is final." She said with her hands on her hips. "You will go up to the bathroom and you will wash your hands and be ready for breakfast in a few minutes. You like pancakes don't you?"

At the mention of pancakes my mouth began to water. "Yes. I do." I admitted unwillingly and as if for more embarrassment my stomach grumbled.

"Good, that settles it. Go on now. Get cleaned up." I nodded and put my duffel by the front door and did as she instructed because I was fairly certain I didn't have any other option. She was a very demanding woman. After washing I went back downstairs and stood in the kitchen doorway.

"Can I help?" he asked.

"No. What you can do is sit right down and get comfortable." I pulled the kitchen chair out and sat down. "So, Dean, what do you do when you aren't putting ghosts to rest?"

"I don't do anything else." She turned to me, brow knitted together in confusion, like I told her I dressed in a pink bunny suit in my off time.

"And you don't take money for your services, or do you just give free passes to old women?"

"No, ma'am I don't take money for this."

"So, how do you keep that big beautiful machine in gas, and clothes on your back." I looked her in the eye, I didn't want her to see my shame, didn't want her to see the scared boy that the girl back at Truman saw. Didn't want to be called out for being a loser.

"I have my ways."

"I bet those ways aren't exactly honest are they."

"I get by."

"You get by." She said and put a plate in front of me and sat down next to me. "That doesn't sound very promising." I shrugged, and looked at the steaming pile of pancakes in front of me, and found myself unsure if I was really welcome to them.

"It's all I know."

"It's all you know? You, a smart, young, nice looking boy…taking care of ghosts is all you know?"

"Yes ma'am. I'm not the smart one in the family. That's my little brother. He's at Stanford. Full ride. Sammy is going to be a lawyer. He can argue you until you die."

"Wow. Full ride to Stanford. That's impressive. Football?"

"No. Academic. He's a genius." I always feel more at ease when I talk about Sam, I don't know why since his absence is what makes me sad and lonely.

"Wow. He is smart." She said and began to eat her own pancakes. "I had a student or two that made it there on academics. That's a lot of hard work." So, she had been a teacher. Wow was she going to be super not impressed with me. High school drop out and all around moron. Yeah, that's the kind of kid that just got rid of your dead husband. I shrugged and thought about my brother and all of the work he did to get into the prestigious school and it made me smile a little.

"He worked all of the time. All of the time. He would sit in the car while we were driving to another hunt and he would read and do homework, he was always working, always thinking."

"And you? You are just good for hunting ghosts?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. That's my job. I'm good at that. I'm good at killing things."

"What were you good at in school? Because something tells me that they didn't have ghost hunting as a career choice."

"School?" I scoffed. "I wasn't good at school."

"Not so good grades?"

"Naw." I shrugged. "Doesn't matter really."

"You never finished did you?" My head snapped up. She saw right through me. She knew. I must have it tattooed on my forehead.

"What?"

"I know that look. I used to get it from former students who would come back and tell me they wished they'd listened, wished that they had finished school. You didn't finish did you?"

"No. I didn't. I wasn't any good. Too cocky I guess."

"You decided to go into this business. This fighting supernatural things business."

"Yeah. It's in the blood I guess."

"But your brother…"

"Was too good for this life. Too smart. He needs to be out in California, doing what he's doing. He's just too smart for this…."

"That's hogwash if I ever heard it. You are just trying to justify feeling bad for yourself. I think that's a load of crap young man." That was most certainly not the response I had anticipated. Thee was a lot more to this Edna Fowler. "Okay, that's it. You are staying here, helping me around this house. Fixing the roof, and the porch, and the plumbing, and I'm going to teach you, and you are going to get your GED. That's that. Now. Go and get your things while I wash up."

"Mrs. Fowler…I can't…no…I…" She was putting me to work, she wanted to educate me. My goodness didn't she know that was a lost cause? If she wants her roof fixed, I'll do that for free, she doesn't' have to bother trying to teach me.

"I didn't realize I had given you an option young man. Go, get your things."

"But you don't know me….I could be a serial killer."

"If you were, you would have killed me already. Now, go and do what you were told." Confused, I stood and did as instructed.


	5. Chapter 5

I had never really had what one would consider a normal life. The longest I had lived anywhere was with Bobby during Sam's senior year of high school. Dad decided that I needed to stay with Sam, to make sure he got his education, and that he was protected. Said that Bobby's house provided a stable address, and that I just needed to stay. Now that Dad has been gone for weeks at a time and not called me but once or twice and pretty much left me alone, I'm beginning to wonder if the reason for staying with Sammy had less to do with protection and more to do with getting away from me.

But even with Bobby, I had gone on hunts, hadn't been told what to do, treated like a child. It wasn't like Edna treated me like a little kid, but she treated me like someone young, who needed to be cared for, not like an adult who could take care of himself. And to be honest, I hadn't quite realized just how much I needed, or no, wanted that kind of attention.

Every single morning, it was expected that I would get up at six, take a shower, make my bed, and come down stairs not only washed but clean shaven. No stubble. I wasn't to look like a little hoodlum. I was to look like a respectable young man. And I did. Every single morning. She would fix wonderful breakfasts, foods that at diners were usually hit or miss, and she made sure I cleaned my plate, and then she shooed me out of the kitchen and set me to a menial task of cleaning out the gutters, cutting the grass, trimming the trees, something, something hard labor that would burn all of my extra energy, and then she would join me in whatever room I was in working on whatever, and she would begin to talk, at first I didn't' understand what she was talking about. But, I realized she was teaching. She would sit on the toilet seat while I was fixing a leaky pipe and she would set to work reciting math facts, and then asking me to repeat them, and before I knew what I was about, I was working in rhythm to the multiplication tables.

Or, we'd be at the grocery store, and I'd be pushing the cart, holding the list and she would be walking at the front of the cart, holding onto it for stability and asking me to add prices together, and then asking me to calculate the tax. I would have to do all of this in my head, and it was really hard at first, but the more we went out and did it, the easier it became. By the fifth week I could do it without her prompting, and I was only off by pennies most of the time.

Every night, before bed, she would read aloud. She would get me so wound up in the stories that I would forget that it was just about time for bed. She made me go to bed no later than 11, said that I needed sleep, that I couldn't learn if I didn't sleep. And then without realizing it, I was starting to look for books in the library and I even got my own card. For the first time in my life I was reading on my own, stories, fiction, not things that researched things that go bump in the night. And I began to understand what I read. And the more I understood, the more I wanted to read. It was like an insatiable need to read, I had never been like that, and what was more was that the stories came to life, it was like watching TV or a movie in my head. I loved it. What was even more cool was that she would read the book with me, and ask me all sorts of weird questions, then she'd teach me something called a literary device, and ask me to find it in what I read. She was always so proud when I figured it out. Sometimes, if I had done something particularly smart, she baked me cookies, and said that every once in a while I deserved a treat.

We learned geography by going and doing. She tricked me the first time, and asked me to take her somewhere in my car, said she missed riding in something as slick as my Impala. And we drove and drove and she asked me about my baby and about my family and we learned about each other. She learned about Sam and Dad and Bobby, and I learned that she never had any babies of her own, learned that she felt that her students were her children and then she retired and sometimes she wished that she and her husband had had children. One time, she said that she was thankful that she had acquired my number. I learned about rivers that day. I learned how they flowed, I learned what kinds of rocks reside inside of them, and what the difference between a fresh water river and a salt water river. I learned about trees, and the rain storms when they happened.

I had never learned and enjoyed it before, Sam always said that learning was fun, and I scoffed (a word taught to me by Edna) and reveled in my ignorance (another word taught to be by the great Edna).

It was close to two months before she closed the book we had been taking turns reading out loud and looked at me and said, "Well, sweetie, you've done all of the work both in the house, outside of the house, and learning. It's time for you to take the test."

For some reason, it hit me harder than I expected, I felt like I was leaving. Like I wasn't welcome anymore. She must have sensed it, because she moved to me and put a hand under my chin. "Sweetie, you can stay here as long as you like. But I'm done teaching. You've learned everything there is to know."

"Are you sure? I don't know my history so well."

She laughed. "You do. You know it better than any student I've ever taught. You just have to have confidence in yourself Dean Winchester. Just like you do when you put a ghost to rest. Have that same confidence tomorrow morning when you take the test."

"Tomorrow?!"

"yes. I didn't want to get you all flustered. You are ready. You can drive me into town tomorrow and I'll shop while you take your test sweetheart." She kissed me on the head, and I didn't realize just how much I needed that little bit of affection.

The next morning I dropped her off at the craft store and I went and took my test. I took three hours to take it and I was shaking when I put the paper down on proctor's desk. I had them send the results to Bobby's because I expected to be gone by the time the results were in.

I left the school and went towards the craft store to pick her up, and all around the craft store were ambulances, and cops and the wayward fire truck. Panicked I rushed to the yellow tape and started yelling.

"Where's Edna!?" I kept screaming at the top of my lungs until I saw Mandy, the store owner, come outside behind a gurney with the sheet pulled up over the person.

"Dean?" she asked with tears running down her face.

"Where is she?" I asked but I already knew the answer.

"She died Dean. She just fell over and died." The middle aged woman began to cry, and I simply stumbled back. I couldn't believe it. I didn't even realize I was running until I was two miles from the shop and so out of breath I threw up. She was like a grandmother, or a mother, she was someone who treated my kindly, treated me like I was alive, and had feelings, and she died. Everyone I ever loved died or left me. It had to be me. I was the reason for all of it.

I got my stuff that day and took off. I drove three states away, and then I circled back, came back, got a motel room, bought a suit. Shaved, showered, and went to her funeral. I sat in the back and listened to all of the people in the small town talk about how wonderful she was, how much she inspired generations of the town's children and how missed she would be. I left before the end of the service. I couldn't look at her in the box any more, I just couldn't. After all she gave me, I couldn't watch them burry her.

I got back to the motel, traded my suit for jeans and my leather jacket, and I got on the road, and vowed that I would never go back. Education be damned. Without Edna, it didn't matter.


	6. Chapter 6

I stood in front of the mailboxes, fumbling with my keys, trying to get the one that opened mine and Jessica's mailbox, it had been one hell of a long day. Professors who pretended to know everything but didn't know squat, friends that had no real sense of responsibility and then there was just the D on the paper that I had worked days on.

I got the mail out of the box, relocked and went up to the apartment. On the top of the stack was a letter from Bobby. I smiled. From time to time he sends me something, usually something that lets me know that my family is okay and that he's okay, and that there is nothing new in the hunting community other than the usual ghosts and goblins. But this time, the envelope was thicker.

I found the letter from Bobby on top.

Hey Son,

Everything is good. Your brother is having a rough time of it right now. A woman, Edna, I think her name is---died a couple of weeks ago. He met her because he was hunting a ghost for her. Well, you know your stubborn assed brother, he wouldn't' take money for his work, so she decided that she would teach him. Not sure exactly how she knew but she did. Held him essentially hostage for three months and made him learn and go and get tested for his GED. Well, let me rephrase, I know her name is Edna, she's an old friend, and I sort of pushed your brother that way. I just wanted you to be up on the lie that your brother thinks is truth. Just in case you boys ever see each other again.

He learned. Boy is he good at reading and he researches almost as fast as you do now. Go figure that. All he needed was some TLC and one on one help. Well, Edna passed away the day he took the test. She was old, her heart wasn't good anymore, wasn't anything anyone could prevent, but it happened right under Dean's nose, and you know how your brother is…you know how he gets when he loses people or is hurt. He's thrown himself into hunting. I had to go rescue him and his car the other week. My God was he bloodied and bruised. 100 stitches in his back. He's okay. No need to worry. He's okay.

But, he got the results of his GED and he refuses to open it, says it isn't important. That he's an idiot and he'll die one. Not like he'll live very long….his words not mine. He took off, didn't take the letter or anything with him. Just took off in the middle of the night. I wish he wouldn't do that kinda stuff, but you know how your brother is.

Anyway, I opened his letter and he passed. He passed Sam, with flying colors. I'm so proud of him. I can't tell him, but I am. So, I thought I'd send you a copy of the report. I know that you are in a big fancy school and a GED doesn't mean much where you are now, but your brother needs to hear that you're proud of him, even if you aren't kid you need to call and tell him that you are. He's certain he's worthless, and I think you might be the only person that can convince him otherwise.

Well, this old fool needs to be in bed. I hope everything is good over there. Tell that girl of yours that I said hi.

Sam dug inside the envelope and found a copy of the certificate that boasted Dean's real name and that he now had a GED. Sam sat down on the couch and starred at it. He was happy for his brother, but it also made him sad. Dean could have had so much in this life. Could have been so many things, but this was it. Dad had reduced him to having nothing more than extensive weapons training and a GED. Sam couldn't help but wonder what his brother could have been if life had been different.

He didn't call Dean, Dean wouldn't be happy to hear from him, Bobby was wrong about that, Dean would have thought the protestation of pride was forced, and pitying. His brother didn't need that. Bobby was right about that, Dean did find himself worthless and his little brother calling him from his big fancy ivy league school in California saying that he was proud of his big brother because he got his GED was condescending. Dean didn't want that, didn't need that. So, instead, he put the copy in the duffel that still carried the few hunting supplies that Dean had stashed away before he left. He looked at it one more time before he zipped up his duffel and shoved it under the bed.


End file.
